Work Smart with Calendar

G Suite has so much to offer to its users, with new updates and extra features being added to different apps all the time. While there’s been a huge increase in functionality over the years, it’s possible that you’ve not been able to take full advantage of this yet. Many companies come to us who already have G Suite but feel they’re not using it to the full. We then work with them to improve their knowledge and adoption of the tools.

These sort of projects inspired our new blog series, Work Smart – we wanted to provide some examples of the slightly more specialist uses of Google’s productivity suite to make sure you’re getting the most of the cloud computing power at your fingertips.

Starting with Google Calendar, you can find a few different ways below to put the increasingly AI-powered app to work, and streamline your work day.

1. Company Equipment

To make tracking and managing the use of company equipment easier, administrators can create a calendar for each company asset, which could include cameras, projectors, vehicles etc. Once the asset calendars are created, they can be shared with the employees who regularly need access to the equipment. When an employee requires the use of the equipment, they can simply select an available time-slot from the appropriate calendar, which is managed by administrators from the My Calendar section.

Benefits

Administrators easily track and manage company from one calendar view.

Employees quickly and easily reserve equipment ahead of time based on availability.

Eliminate double-booking equipment and reduce lost or missing equipment.

2. Company Events

Administrators and planners can create a specific Calendar dedicated to a company event. By doing this, they can keep their own calendars separate and ensure that the event details are as clear as possible for all attendees. Once they have created the new calendar, they can share it with all the managers who require an overview of the schedule before inviting guests. To make sure everyone has access, the calendar can also be embedded within the event website.

Benefits

Everyone can see key event-related meetings and milestones.

Individual planners and attendees know which events or tasks they have, while keeping their personal calendar separate from the event calendar.

3. Mobile Devices

You’ll likely know that you can view, edit and create meetings through the Google Calendar mobile app, although you may not be aware that to help you schedule these meetings, you can overlay coworkers calendars. This can be done in either day, week or month view, which will help you easily find a meeting time that suits all without having to email back and forth.

Benefits

Easily see who is available and when with the calendar overlay.

Keep up with calendar management and scheduling while away from the office.

4. Organise Meetings with Shared Documents

One of the simplest, but most useful features of Google Calendar, is that you can attach documents such as presentations or previous meeting notes, to each event. So if you’re having a web conference, everyone in attendance will have immediate access to all of the required materials.

Benefits

Centralize meeting documents for all attendees.

Provide the most up-to-date meeting information.

These are some of the most common ‘use-cases’ we’ve seen come up when we’ve worked with businesses but there are many others – hopefully some of them have given food for thought on how you organise things at your business.

Contact

If you’re interested in learning more about how to get the most out of Google Calendar or you’d just like to find out a bit more about G Suite and what it could offer, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via info@cobry.co.uk. We would be delighted to have a chat about how we could help.

Colin is a director at cobry with almost a decade of experience helping organisations make the most of the latest cloud technology. In an increasingly cloud-first world, he believes that G Suite is the most effective cloud-based IT system for most organisations.